THE GOOD EARTH.
I am not tough enough to do my daily walk in the pre-dawn cold, anymore. If the temp is on the arctic side of 40, I just roll over in bed.
I’ve taken a liking to afternoon walks if there’s not a downpour.
In the last week I’ve started using the walking trail at the Nashville Elementary School. It’s a serpentine asphalt ribbon on the north side of the school and east of one of the buildings at Immanuel Baptist Church. We had a picture of some of the school administration there along with folks from the Healthy Coalition not too many weeks ago. Plus, a recent speaker at Rotary said that the trail would eventually be connected to the city park by sidewalks. This is all a part of an effort to get our community — young and old — to get more exercise.
The walk is pretty nice and unlike my neighborhood, there are no hills to shuffle up.
I decided to slow things down and try to enjoy the walk. I noticed sparrows bathing in the pools of water left in the ruts created by little feet under the playground swings. The birds ignored me for the longest time; then, either got clean or nervous.
At the far north of the trail one of the neighbors has planted some Bradford Pear trees. At first glance the leaves appeared to have already turned black and were ready to fall to the ground.
But when I drew nearer I saw that that the leaves were actually black, orange, coral, yellow and pinkish. A mixture very pleasurable to the eyes, made even more pleasureable by the backdrop of clear blue sky.
Once during that Sunday afternoon stroll, a helicopter ambulance flew overhead, pointed for Little Rock, most likely. And I heard vehicles passing nearby on North Main Street. Otherwise, it was as quiet as the deep woods.
I remembered a song in which the singer urged us to “Stop and Smell the Roses,” which was just a metaphor for urging listeners to slow down and enjoy the world around us.
I hope you have a fabulous Thanksgiving. Take some time to smell the roses, and be grateful for living in such a fine community surrounded by such wonderful people.
I plan to have Thanksgiving dinner with daughter Julie Graves and Miss Carsyn Elizabeth Murphy, 16. They will spoil me for a couple of days, then I’ll get back here for the Christmas parade, Breakfast with Santa, and other Yule events.
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WHO’S IN A NAME? According to a Yahoo news article, which quotes the Social Security Administration, in 2018 parents came up with 4,000 more names for girls than for boys.
The article sez that the list includes slightly more than 18,000 girls names, compared to slightly more than 14,000 names for boys.
And, again according to the article, parents of newborns in this country are getting creative in choosing (or inventing) names.
The SSA keeps up with all of it.
In my humble opinion, some names poor little children are given are guaranteed to be a burden to them later in life.
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PERHAPS YOU’VE noticed. This newspaper issue is the first in about 10 years when I’ve not updated and rewritten my annual Thanksgiving-in-a-teepee Thanksgiving Dinner column. Forgive my immodesty, but I thought that column was pretty funny. The premise was funny enough — in my humble opinion — that I would use it over and over and over.
But I came to realize that some persons of Native American heritage might not see it that way. I was not trying to make fun of Native Americans, but of our stereotypes of Indians and cowboys developed from decades of watching Western films.That could be misunderstood, so I am dropping the repeat of that column.
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THINGS I LEARNED from opening (and believing) email: “Arbitrator: A cook who leaves Arby’s and takes a job at Burger King.”
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THIS TIME of year reminds me of how important it is for people to be ACTIVELY involved in their community. It is a sad truth but Americans are getting slower to volunteer for fire departments, scouting sponsors, 4-H leaders, Sunday School teachers, civic club members, Little League baseball umpires, etc.
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WORD GAMES. Another set of twins: Turkey and Dressing. Burp. And pass the cranberry, please.
I look forward to turkey sandwiches almost as much as the ‘regular’ Thanksgiving meal.
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HE SAID: “You may have heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There’s another day you might want to know about: Giving Tuesday. The idea is pretty straightforward. On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, shoppers take a break from their gift-buying and donate what they can to charity.” Bill Gates, American business magnate, software developer, investor, and philanthropist
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SHE SAID: “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” Oprah Winfrey, entertainer
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
